• by Larissa Faw , December 31, 2018

After finding out that 22squared's president Brandon Murphy builds robots and 180LA's Al Moseley ends his morning run with a "mysterious green juice," several more agency leaders are revealing their unique and unusual talents.

Russell Dodson, executive creative director of Baldwin& in Raleigh N.C. is a shark wrestler.

Yes, you read that right. When he lived in Nassau, Bahamas, from 2004-2006, he used to do it for money after borrowing a "chain mail suit" from his best friend in the Bahamas. Now, however, when he's down there, he and his friend simply feed the sharks for fun and not extra cash, he says.

It is important to be impeccably dressed when meeting Fiverr's global head of brand and digital Chris Lane for the first time. He can remember exactly what a person wore during an initial introduction months later. What started out as a quirky party trick in college has turned into an incredibly valuable tool for his professional career, he says.

This reporter tested him some five months after a first meeting to find out that indeed his recall in this regard is accurate. “It creates an essentially limitless reference catalogue for me to work with that’s come in handy for creative conceptualization, storyboarding, wardrobe & design and more. It allows me to approach creative work authentically, as I can always remember what someone would do (or wear) in a particular situation," says Lane. 

Scott Goodson of StrawberryFrog is obsessed, perhaps unsurprisingly, with frogs. “When I was a kid, I was enchanted with frogs after visiting the Amazon and seeing them in all their colors,” he says. "Later in life when I started this movement marketing firm, I called it StrawberryFrog partially because of my fascination and partially because the frog is a small and agile creature - which is what StrawberryFrog is." Plus, he adds, "the strawberry frog is one of the rarest frogs and so we claimed it as our namesake."

LO:LA's leadership team has members with a number of unusual talents and proclivities. Co-creative director Robert Birdwell builds residential elevator cabs in his spare time as a hobby. Home owners can customize their lift, from handrail selection to an array of lighting options. Birdwell also goes off-the-grid for one week each year to the mountains where he is unplugged and out-of-sight. 

CEO/creative director Nick Platt paints tiny toy soldiers as a hobby and roots for a team 5,297 miles away, soccer's Manchester United. (Call it a football team if you’re in Manchester though.)